Example Outline for a Web Accessibility Workshop

Page Contents

This page provides an overview and outline for an example three-day
hands-on workshop on web accessibility, as a basis for developing
customized training for specific audience needs and goals. It links to Accessibility Topics and WAI resources that you can use as building blocks to develop your presentation and activity materials.

Suggested activity:

Ask participants to write down something they learned in the
last two days that they will incorporate in their work immediately,
something that surprised them, or the most interesting thing they
learned. Discuss some of the impressions from the participants to share
lessons learned.

This example workshop is not a complete set of training material.
Trainers will need to adapt the material to suit their audience. For
example, for an in-house workshop, trainers should focus on the issues
most common to the organization's content and development environment,
and could use the organization's website and authoring tools for
examples and activities.

This material assumes that trainers are experienced web
accessibility practitioners and trainers. That is, it does not attempt
to train trainers.

This outline is for an initial workshop. Follow up workshops might
be needed. For example, content authors would benefit from specific
instruction on how to use their content management system (CMS) or other
authoring tools to provide accessible content.

Additional notes for presenters for the technical sessions on days 2 and 3:

Allow time at the end of each session to sum up the requirements and clarify any issues arising from the session.

Finish days 1 and 2 with a brief summary of the day, and start days 2 and 3 with a brief summary of the previous day. Seek feedback at the end of each day and adjust remaining material as appropriate.

Clarify that not all WCAG 2.0 success criteria are being presented and discussed in this workshop.

Describe the intent of accessibility
requirements, and their relationship to barriers for people with
disabilities and older people. Also describe the broader benefits for mobile users, search engine optimization (SEO), and more.

Draw illustrative examples from sites and material that are relevant to the participants backgrounds, e.g. government, commerce, etc.

The Before and After Demonstration provides accessible and inaccessible web pages, including evaluation
reports, that can be used as examples. Using the participants' own
websites or similar websites to theirs (such as websites from competitor
organizations) helps make the examples more tangible.

Emphasize the benefits of How to Meet WCAG 2.0, a customizable quick reference to WCAG 2.0 requirements and techniques, including 'best practice' advisory techniques.

Introduce appropriate evaluation techniques and tools for each issue as it is covered.